I was born to be a treasure hunter.
I've seen every map.
Heard every mystery.
I've seen almost every treasure story there is.
But nothing compares to Montezuma's
$3 billion lost treasure.
And I know it's somewhere on Blind Frog Ranch.
Duane locked the gates to Blind Frog Ranch last year,
but I have to keep going.
So with Duane's blessing,
I'm reopening the ranch and taking over.
So I'm bringing in someone with a long history of success
in hunts like this, my father.
My name's Ron Feldman.
For most of my life,
my profession has been treasure hunting.
Over the past 50 years,
Ron Feldman has led treasure expeditions
at 24 sites across four countries.
In the 1990s, Ron's discovery of the Lost Dutchman Mine
cemented him as the greatest living treasure hunter.
There's my dad.
Dad!
Hey! I made it!
How you been?
Good. It's good to see you.
Good to see you.
My dad taught me everything I know about treasure hunting.
He's the perfect guy to bring in and help me lead this hunt.
- Ron? James Keenan. - Yep, James.
We have been looking for treasure for five years,
and now we're about to find it.
Legends of ancient treasures...
It could go thousands of years back.
...and unexplained phenomena...
Oh [bleep] this.
I'm not messing with that.
...meet at a 160-acre property in northeast Utah,
known as Blind Frog Ranch.
For decades, teams have searched the land
for long lost Aztec gold.
But the closer they get...
- That's it. - Look at that.
- That's gold! - Yeah.
...the harder the land fights back.
Oh! The hell is going on?
Now, a prolific miner...
We're standing on a pile of gold.
...and a legendary treasure hunter...
There must be another tunnel entrance, something.
...armed with new evidence...
- Look at this. - What did you find?
...and a fabled artifact...
There's a date on that, 1912.
...will take on a 500-year-old curse.
Fire in the hole!
A land littered with traps...
- Go, go, go! - Whoa, whoa, whoa!
...to find a $3 billion treasure.
Whoa!
They won't stop until they uncover the mystery
of what lurks below...
Guys, it's caving!
Oh [bleep]! Run!
...at Blind Frog Ranch.
- All right, Dad. - Yeah.
Let's take you for a tour.
I wanna show you around the whole ranch here.
I'm telling ya, there's just--
there's more there than you'd think.
Getting inside the Keyhole Chamber
has been the main focus for us the past few years.
We believe there's a keyhole-shaped chamber
300 feet below Blind Frog Ranch.
And inside is where the Aztecs hid
over a billion dollars worth of treasure.
This treasure is my white whale.
It would be a life-changing discovery.
Maybe I'll have enough input by the time I
get some of this stuff under my belt.
Well, that's why I brought you in.
- Right. - I figure there's--
uh, you know, in my world, there's nobody better.
Treasure hunting is something we used to do as a family.
Working with my son on one of these treasure hunts,
that was the plus.
Even when Josh was a baby,
when we used to go traipsing off in the High Sierras,
looking for gold, I carried him as an infant
in a knapsack on my chest.
This would be the biggest discovery of my career.
If I can help my son find one of the richest lost treasures
in history, what more can a dad ask for?
And what I can lean on is my 60 years
of treasure-hunting experience.
My method is researching stories first.
I like following other people's footsteps
that have gone before me, looking for these lost places.
This is the Keyhole Chamber, Dad.
OK.
Duane has believed in this site,
I think, ever since he's had the ranch.
They did some sort of quantum mapping.
The results were that there was a big chamber right here,
right where Duane thought there was.
They've drilled this. They can't quite get through.
They keep having problems with drilling--
all kinds of different issues.
It just hit something hard.
Looked like a chunk of metal.
There's a-- a fault that we've been following
that runs right through there that Eric identified.
- Right. - And that's where you have
these cave openings.
Just over those hills there, near the open-pit mine,
I found an entrance I thought could lead all the way back
to the Keyhole Chamber.
The cave Josh discovered descended 250 feet underground,
but was filled with collapses and dead ends.
And before exiting the cave,
he found mysterious symbols
etched on the walls.
Look at this.
It looks like a marking.
The biggest thing I wanted you to see, Dad,
were those symbols.
- That, obviously, is not an Indian petroglyph. - No.
It doesn't look anything that would be Spanish
or anything like that.
It would have to be the Mormons.
They were the ones that were here.
The big question is-- what were they doing in there?
Studying the Mormon history, the Mormons are tightly
involved in this story.
In 1845, Mormons migrated westward and settled in Utah.
They developed their own writing system
called the Deseret alphabet.
The symbols Josh discovered near the Keyhole Chamber
appear to be Deseret characters.
Were they actually looking for the Aztec gold?
That's what we need to find out.
The Mormons were known treasure hunters.
So if they found the Mormon symbol
that close to the Keyhole Chamber,
this, to me, can only mean one thing--
I believe that what they were actually looking for
was Aztec treasure in the Keyhole Chamber.
They were looking for something
that they heard of that was there.
And they would have known about Montezuma's treasure
there's no question of that. - Well, 100%.
You know, I'm just coming in here new.
I'm excited just getting on this Mormon thing,
because I think this has a lot to do
with everything you guys have been looking for.
My dad is on to something here.
Duane followed the Aztec legends,
because that's all he had to go on.
But if the Mormons were looking for the Keyhole Chamber,
they would have kept detailed records.
If we're able to track down their documents
and combine that with our skill set,
I think that gives us a great chance of finding the gold.
All we gotta do is get our eyes on the ground
and see what we can find,
and that'll help us drive the hunt.
- Let's do it. - All right.
Sounds like a plan.
I reached out to a fellow named Greg Lowe.
He is a treasure hunter,
knows more about Mormon treasure than anybody.
He's been out there for over 50 years.
And he's got 70 claims in the Uintas.
And if anyone has Mormon documents
that maybe we could get, it would be him.
Yeah.
We're heading out to town to meet with Greg.
He's been prospecting all over the world since the 1970s.
I know he's got a lot of information about the Mormons.
I'm hoping he can help get us into the Keyhole Chamber
under Blind Frog.
But treasure hunters,
they're not forthcoming all the time.
They hold their information tight to their chest.
They're not going to share it normally.
But, you know, we'll just go try.
We'll see what he will talk to us about.
Maybe he's done searching for it.
He wants to pass it on.
There's a lot of passing on in treasure hunting.
This is it.
OK, well, hopefully he's got some good stuff for us.
Well, we'll find out, I guess, huh?
Where are we supposed to meet him, did he say?
- I think in there. - Here?
Yeah. He's in the garage.
All right.
Greg?
Yeah.
- Greg Lowe, I presume. - I think I am.
- Ron. - Ron.
- Pleased to meet you. - Nice to meet you, too.
- Yes, thanks for doing this for us. - I bet you we've
actually crossed some paths.
- Might have, might have. - Great.
If you've been down around Arizona,
we probably did.
- I have. - OK, there.
I heard you guys own the Mammoth Mine.
- We do, yeah, we do. - Yeah.
Excellent.
I actually did some samples from that.
- Oh, did you? OK. - Assay samples, yeah.
- Come on in. - OK.
Thank you.
I never met Greg, but I've heard of him
because in treasure hunting circles, it's small.
It's well known he has extensive knowledge
of treasure hunts in the Utah area
and has worked closely with a descendant
of the famous Mormon family, Gale Rhoades.
How long have you been searching for gold out here?
I was first introduced to it, uh, in 1972.
And then later on, Gale Rhoades called me out of the blue,
and he said, "Greg, I've seen, uh--
"seen your name on a couple of claims here.
I'd like to talk to you."
We worked together on a number of projects
up until his death.
Gale Rhoades was a direct descendant
of a legendary Mormon gold prospector-- Thomas Rhoades.
For centuries, his descendants hunted
for lost treasure in Utah.
Gale and Greg spent 30 years scouring the family's documents
for clues that lead to gold.
Now Greg has possession of all the family's research.
So you have basically all of Gale Rhoades' hunt on paper,
all of his information? - Yes.
So this is all handwritten,
and by Gale Rhoades. - Gale Rhoades, yeah.
- 1978. - 1978.
He updated that throughout his life,
assembling all the family entries and journals.
Now we come over. This is Blind Frog.
- Down in here. - This is where Blind Frog is.
Yes.
And these were the old mine tunnels here.
I can let you look at it temporarily here.
"This map and description shows another source of gold,
"known to Caleb Rhoades.
Start at the slope and head east until you come to a fault."
I mean, if this is legit,
then we should be able to find the location of this mine.
It's legit.
Greg has a compilation of maps and passages
about the Rhoades family treasure hunts,
including some on Blind Frog Ranch.
If the Mormons were looking for Aztec treasure,
I think it's possible, there could be information in here
that could lead us to the Keyhole Chamber.
So whatever they wrote, we need to read.
It's extremely important.
And Greg knows a lot of things,
but I'll bet you there's a few things that maybe we know
that he doesn't.
Now, we gotta strike a deal with him
and see what he'll let us walk out of here with.
Greg, we found something recently
that put us on this trail.
This information here would be vital to us.
It's in this binder.
If we agree to share information together
and also share any treasure we may find--
any way that we can take some of that information with us?
I mean, how do we move forward?
Well, this binder is a copy.
I may have something I can, uh, provide you with.
There is a handwritten journal--
and I happen to have it right over here.
Original maps
and all the family entries and journals.
Ooh.
It may help you find what you're looking for.
According to Greg, this journal contains
original notes and maps written by the Rhoades family
on the hunt for Aztec gold.
We'd rather have the binder
that has all of Greg and Gale's research,
but the journal is the second best option.
If this journal is legit, this thing is exactly
what we need to push us forward.
I mean, it is the-- it is our key into this.
Thank you for all of this. Appreciate this.
- We'll be in touch. - Great.
- OK. - Thank you.
The fact that these could have possibly come
from the original source... these are very valid.
And this is something that we need to follow.
2 Let's get that thing open.
Let's see what we got.
Look at this, Dad.
"Gold as far as the eye could see."
It sounds like treasure to me.
After acquiring a copy of a Rhoades family journal,
Josh and Ron eagerly decipher its cryptic contents.
See, this is different handwriting
than some of this other. - Oh, this-- that--
this has to have been done by multiple people.
The journal contains maps and research
from the Rhoades family,
legendary Mormon treasure hunters
in the Uinta Valley.
So, this book has been in the Rhoades family
for generations? - Yes.
Well, yeah.
- Maybe. - And multiple people
in the family have written and logged,
and probably searched for this thing.
You know what-- what's really cool
is it-- this is only, maybe the Rhoades family
and Greg Lowe that have ever seen this.
We're the first removed people from that line
that has probably had our eyes on this journal.
This is interesting. Somebody doodled out a mine.
It says, "The entrance is described as four-foot-tall--"
Now, wait a minute. this it--
There's a date on that-- 1912.
It looks like this is all mining stuff.
Lots of written stuff.
This journal that Greg Lowe gave to us is not an exact map.
It's a compilation, I believe, of Rhoades' relatives
that maybe searched for the Aztec gold.
Here's another list...
- Yeah. - ...of equipment.
- Look at this. This talks about a powder horn. - Mm-hmm, yeah.
- A powder horn hasn't been used for 150 years. - I know, right.
We're gonna have to decipher a lot in it.
We're gonna have to study it.
But it's-- it's an artifact that could absolutely help us
locate what we're looking for.
They have all these little notes
that are, like, in here.
- See, people were working out of this. - Yeah, right.
- This was a working journal. - Right, right.
Look at here.
Whiterocks Creek.
Wait a sec. I know Whiterocks.
There's a Whiterocks Canyon not too far from Blind Frog.
- It's down the Uintas, a bit further from us. - Right, right, right.
This note here says-- directions.
So it's saying-- it's saying that these are directions.
- This note is saying... - Yeah, that's what I'm reading here.
...that these are-- these are directions - That's what I'm reading.
That's what we should be reading right there. Go ahead, keep going.
"Take the first branch right canyon, and climb to the top
of a flat mountain."
It says, "Travel in a straight line across the canyon."
What does this say? Can you make that out?
"Travel in a straight line through the canyon,
"using tree markings to guide,
then at the end of it, the shaft."
"The shaft"?
Do you think shaft could mean an entrance
to the Keyhole Chamber?
You know-- I don't know.
A shaft could be a cave, a tunnel,
even a hole in the ground.
And this passage sounds like it's referencing an area
near Blind Frog.
I think that could mean that this shaft is an entrance
to the Keyhole Chamber.
People have been hunting these things.
They've written down what they've done,
but they didn't know Blind Frog like we do.
So, we can take information in this journal,
places they never could.
Listen, there's so much in here to digest.
I think when we get back, we'll get a topo
and sit down with James and-- and Eric.
I think we need to go to Whiterocks
and follow those instructions, and see where it leads us.
All right.
Gentlemen,
we got some big news for you.
This journal right here,
the journal that Greg gave us. - OK.
There is information in there from the Rhoades family.
So we're talking firsthand account.
- Really? - Yeah, their writings.
And what do you think?
There is information in here that I have not heard of before.
Have any of the sites that we know about,
show up in there?
There's stuff in here that's familiar to me,
that's right here on Blind Frog Ranch.
Let me get the topo map. Let's--
Yeah, yeah.
This passage that refers to Whiterocks
seems like it put you right here on Blind Frog Ranch.
The passage says, marked trees lead us to the shaft.
We think that could mean some kind of an entrance.
And if we're right, I think this could be leading us
to the chamber that we've been calling the Keyhole Chamber.
Up Whiterocks Creek.
OK, so where's the mouth of Whiterocks Creek?
It's gonna be to the west
of Blind Frog, right? - West, correct.
It's the next canyon over, isn't it?
- Yes. - There's mountain--
Yeah, so it's gonna be below Chalk Cliffs.
It'll be down here.
- It's Whiterocks Canyon. - Right.
And then it says, "Take the first right canyon
and climb to the top of a flat mountain."
It seems that that could be here somewhere.
"Travel in a straight line across the canyon.
using the tree markings to guide."
That passage says tree markings will lead us
to some kind of a shaft,
but it's hard to tell which direction a flat mountain is
from this map.
I think if we get up to this peak right here,
we'll be able to figure out which direction we have to go.
That passage right there takes us
to just above Blind Frog Ranch.
We need to get boots on the ground.
If there's a possible entrance that's right there,
we need to uncover it.
This journal gives us a starting point,
but from there, we'll have to figure out where to go next.
We're looking for a bank of marked trees.
I don't know what it's leading us to,
but I'm hoping it's an entrance to the Keyhole Chamber.
- OK. - Let's get to it.
- Let's do it. - All right.
I wanna get an overview of the whole area,
so we'll be able to see all the canyons,
the mountaintops, everything.
To locate the entrance scribed in the Rhoades' journal,
the team travels four miles north into the Uinta Mountains.
Sitting 10,000 feet in elevation,
the mountain range provides a clear view
of Whiterocks Canyon,
a location described as a starting point
in the passage that could lead to the Keyhole Chamber.
Well, we're getting up in elevation here.
Yeah, we are.
I just-- my ears are popping.
- I can feel it. - Yeah.
Deciphering anything is hard.
You don't know what the author of that meant.
It may have been obvious to them,
but it's probably not gonna be obvious to us.
These passages mention canyons, slopes,
and flat ground, so getting up high in elevation
will give us a great vantage point of the entire area.
I think we're here.
Wow! Look at that view.
Sumbitch.
Whoo! You get a little vertigo.
So this is Whiterocks Canyon all through here.
OK.
Whiterocks Canyon is a remote landscape
stretching across more than 9,000 acres
of unforgiving terrain.
For thousands of years, Whiterocks' harsh expanse
was occupied by the Fremont and Ute peoples,
and later used by Mormon pioneers
as a natural refuge.
The journal entry says,
"you will need to go up the first branch of Whiterocks--
"and take the first right canyon and climb to the top
of a flat mountain."
This is Whiterocks here.
So that's right down there.
- OK, so it's right over here. - Yes.
If we stay to the right and follow along that canyon,
we're supposed to see a flat area.
And if you look out here, see that?
And that's a flat area right there, and there's a big grove
of trees in there, too.
And then that's where they're supposed to be
the markings in the trees is in that stand.
From their vantage point, the team believes
the journal passage points east
from the first branch of Whiterocks Canyon
toward a flat stretch of land
just a mile and a half north of Blind Frog.
And that's where there's supposed to be
all these markings that you can follow
in a straight line.
Then Blind Frog would just be southeast of that, right?
- Yes. - Yeah, down here.
So let's head that way right now.
Yeah.
I mean, I think that we need to go search that whole site
right there.
- Let's do it. - All right, let's do it.
When you're following history like we are,
each one of these discoveries puts us closer
to finding the gold.
We can see a grove of trees south of us,
so we're headed that way to see
if any of them have any markings.
Every marker we find out here could put us one step closer
to finding the Keyhole Chamber.
2 If you look out here, see that?
- Yeah. - That canyon does come up,
and that's a flat area right there,
and there's a big grove of trees in there, too.
And that's where there's supposed to be
all these marked trees
you could follow in a straight line.
After decoding an entry in the Rhoades family journal,
the team has identified a grove of trees
that could contain markings that lead to an entrance
to the Keyhole Chamber.
OK, so then we're headed
this way, right here? - Yeah.
All right, let's do it.
We just gotta stay away from these younger,
thinner aspen.
Gotta be these older coniferous trees.
I see lots of marks on trees,
but there-- those are all definitely natural.
What's that right there, straight ahead?
We got a marked tree over here, James.
Look at this.
- Ahh! - Look how that's cut.
That's not-- that's not natural.
And that's a definite direction it's pointing.
And this is an old tree, too. Look at the size of it.
This marking looks just like
the one described in the journal.
This is a directional arrow marking.
If I can figure out what that is
and what this artist was actually trying to tell us,
we can maybe get to exactly where we wanna go.
Tree markings have been used as a form of communication
for centuries.
Native tribes carved them to mark boundaries,
but early explorers and treasure hunters
often used them to relay information and directions.
The journal entry says, "Stand of trees
with markings on them,
follow the ones that are in a straight line."
We'll head this way. So we'll head this--
whatever this bearing is... - Right.
...we'll stay on that bearing
and see if we find any other markers.
So we're thinking right in--
right in this direction here. - Yeah.
I'm gonna stand on the opposite side of the tree
and get an exact bearing.
Seem about right, Josh, where I'm pointed?
- Yeah, yeah. - Directly opposite?
Yeah, you're directly opposite of the arrow on the tree.
This is pointing 130 degrees bearing Southeast.
- OK. - So this way, I'll keep the compass out.
There's a little something here.
That's like a perfect arrowhead.
And that's old. That tree's grown in on itself.
Pointing in this direction?
Take a bearing, Eric.
What's that bearing?
130.
- It's 130? - It's 130, man.
So this is pointing towards Blind Frog Ranch.
Let's go.
- Straight down? - Straight down.
Somebody put a lot of effort to create these.
Now, on its own, it doesn't mean much.
But when we put that together
in conjunction with everything else
that we found on this trail,
in a straight line, headed towards the ranch.
Where the Keyhole Chamber is.
This means something.
Check this out up here.
You got something?
Oh, look at that.
I mean, that's deep carve.
And that's pretty complex,
like, petals.
Those two arrows
brought us right to this.
- Yeah. - Well, let's stick to that 130.
Let's go.
When I go out there and I can prove this,
and then that next thing proves the next thing,
and that next thing proves the next thing,
that's how you get to the end of the trail.
That's how you're successful in treasure hunting.
I think it opens up more over there.
What is that over there?
Oh, yeah, I see that, James.
A primitive shelter or something?
Yeah, but it's dark from here.
That's a lot of dark black.
Yeah, look at this.
That black goes right here from the bottom
all the way up this way. - Oh, yeah.
Right up the side of the cliff line.
Yeah.
It doesn't look natural, I mean, as far as mineral goes.
No, that's not like manganese or anything.
No, no, it's too black for that.
Well, look down here.
- Charcoal. - It's charcoal.
- It's charcoal, yeah. - Yeah.
Yeah, look, this is all charred up here.
This is all burnt. That was white-hot.
I think that's a piece of clay.
- You see that? - Let me see that.
Here's some more of it right here.
Give it the clay test.
- Yeah, it smears. - Yeah?
It's clay, yep.
So what are you thinking?
All this charcoal, all the charcoal on the ground,
this was a white-hot fire, we're finding--
we're finding pieces of clay.
I think somebody built the furnace back here.
That's what all this is from.
Clay furnaces, or smelters,
have been used to refine ore for centuries.
Clay structures can withstand temperatures
above 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit,
making them ideal for melting metals.
Smelters are typically the last step in ore processing
and the farthest from the entrance to the mine.
Guys, we're looking for an entrance
to the Keyhole Chamber, somewhere near here.
If they're building a furnace, they had to be smelting ore.
Which means there's a mine close by.
We need to look around this entire area because
what if that mine is our entrance?
The journal says, we're looking for a shaft.
I didn't know exactly what that meant until now.
I mean, the journal got us here.
We-- we followed that thing and it brought us right here.
And now we found evidence of mining.
I think that means what we're looking for is a mine entrance
into the Keyhole Chamber.
The Keyhole Chamber could be just at our reach.
2 I think somebody built a furnace back here.
If they're building a furnace,
they might have been smelting ore.
The team is following a journal entry
across the Uinta Valley.
After finding a smelter, they now believe
they're searching for a mine entrance that will lead
to the Keyhole Chamber.
The mine we're looking for should be somewhere near here.
Finding this furnace means that we're on the right track.
It means that the information in the journal
is proving itself out.
At this point, we've gone as far
as the journal passage can take us.
If what we're looking for is actually a mine entrance,
we can find useful clues by looking around the area.
- Let's have a look, guys. - Yeah.
Yeah.
Get out here and start canvassing this area.
I'll go up higher.
James, be looking for quartz, any kind of ore.
- OK. - Yeah.
They would have mined it and then brought it over
to this area where it's more protected.
to then actually process it.
We're searching an area where they processed ore,
and we're looking for mineralization,
depressions in the ground,
where there might be an entrance.
At the same time, we're looking
for any evidence of mining, rotted timbers, old tools,
any proof that people were here and working.
Hey, guys!
Look at this. I got something.
It doesn't look natural. It doesn't look like the, uh--
- That ain't natural, no. - It's not like an iron nodule
we've seen around here.
I mean, this is a rusted-out piece of iron, is what it is.
- It was sitting here? - Sitting right here.
- Underneath that limb? - Yep.
If it was washed down, that's a good place
it would catch.
Where could it have washed down from?
When we're looking at arid climates,
there's a term called "the wash."
It's almost like a-- a dry stream bed, basically.
The idea is during heavy rains,
water would wash heavier materials down,
and they might be trapped by roots
or behind rocks or things like that.
So those are the areas we'd like to focus on.
These trees are covering stuff.
What's this-- this rock here?
It looks a lot different from the surrounding bedrock.
Yeah, it does.
It's got a big old flat bottom on it, doesn't it?
Yeah. This sucker's heavy.
- That's-- - And this is hard.
This is a lot harder
than the surrounding sandstone.
This has been brought in here.
It's not from these cliffs, is it?
Look at this.
Is that a hole?
I don't think that's a natural hole.
That's not-- that's definitely not natural.
Why would they have put a hole there?
Well, if you're processing ore...
You know, this could be a dragstone.
- What's a dragstone? - For milling ore.
If that's the case, then there has to be an arrastra somewhere
around here, and an arrastra was a way to crush ore.
An arrastra is a rudimentary mill often used by gold miners
in the 1800s to crush their ore.
It consisted of a large circular stone base
with a dragstone tied to a long wooden pole.
The pole arm was then attached to a mule.
As the mule walked around the arrastra,
the dragstone would crush the ore,
readying it for smelting.
The presence of an arrastra could indicate a mine entrance
is nearby.
There's got to be more to this.
There's-- like the rest of this arrastra
has to be near here.
Then we're talking about somewhat flat surface.
And rocks that don't look like they're from here,
because this isn't the type of stone,
it's not hard enough... - Yeah.
...to use for an arrastra.
Guys, there's something flat.
I'm standing on something flat right here.
- Yes, there is. - Oh, yeah.
Look at this.
Oh, that's perfectly flat.
That's been ground down.
Look at that.
- Yeah. - This is--
this is the base of the arrastra?
Yeah.
Right about here, you'd had a center post.
- OK. - In the center of it,
there'd be a post that would go up with an arm.
- OK. - And then that's what would drag
that dragstone right there.
Walk around a circle and just keep dragging that rock
and just keep adding ore into here.
This smelter was the first clue we were a lot closer to a mine.
But this arrastra gives us a lot more to go on.
After you pull ore from a mine,
the first place you go is to your arrastra.
And if you do that enough,
you're gonna leave a lot of clues behind.
Foot traffic or wagon wheels
can leave a lasting impression in the earth,
and ore fragments can fall off along the way.
If we find anything like that, it could lead us directly
to the mine entrance.
I think we should metal detect this entire arrastra.
I agree.
2 Hey, Reaves, thanks for bringing this rig up.
On the outskirts of Blind Frog Ranch,
Josh, James, and Eric have discovered
the ruins of a 19th century gold processing operation.
They believe they've unearthed the remains of an arrastra,
a crude ore crushing mill that was widely used
during the American Gold Rush.
We stumble across this arrastra,
and this is absolute proof
that people were out here working ore.
There has to be a mine site somewhere nearby.
But the journal doesn't tell us where to go next.
If we investigate, we should be able to find
the path of where the ore was coming from.
Right here is the outer wall.
Just clear out this right here.
Copy that.
I'm not only looking for gold at the arrastra,
but maybe artifacts left behind that can tell us
from which direction this ore came in from.
The ultimate goal here
is to get us into that Keyhole Chamber.
Yeah!
Look it, see? There's more of it coming up.
- See what I'm saying? - Yeah, where the edge stone is.
That's awesome. You just exposed
some more of the outer wall.
- Perfect. - Oh.
A grid system is really important in an excavation,
so that I know where it came out of the ground.
I'm gonna start on the inner portion of the grid,
expanding outwards from the arrastra.
That way we keep good records of where an artifact came out
of the ground.
That way I can label what square it's coming out of.
We're using string to help create these search grids
and then running the metal detector through each one.
Now that's a signal right there.
Section two.
If we get a hit, we'll collect that pile
and run it through my sifter.
Accretions?
- Yeah, all the same thing. - Accretions, yeah.
- A lot-- look at that. - Yeah.
So I have my first two sections.
There was nothing in those other two sections,
so I'm gonna pull the grid for now.
There are definite hits there, so I'm gonna just shovel.
This will be section--
one, two, three. It's section three,
square one.
What I'd like to do is just concentrate right here.
This is-- this is just like a crevice in a natural rock.
And so if they were crushing gold, it's very possible
that it could find its way down into that crack.
I'm just gonna run this pinpointer over it
to see if it can pick up anything metallic, basically.
- Do you need me to do anything? - No, not at this point.
I'm gonna pinpoint it to see if here--
maybe there's something in there. - No way.
- I'm getting a hit. - All right.
- It could just be iron. - It could just be iron.
But there's definitely something right there.
I'm gonna dig it a little bit.
- It's right in here. - Right.
I'm seeing a little something there.
- I'm seeing something. - Eric, that looks like--
- Oh, it's unmistakable. - Oh--
Oh, my god!
- You've got it! - It's gold! It's gold!
It's gold!
- That's it! - Look at that!
- That's gold! - Look at that.
We've got gold!
- Whoa! - Look at this!
Look at that!
Holy [bleep]! That's gold!
Damn right it's gold.
Everything's coming together here, man.
Everything.
All right, yeah, let's get this thing bottled up.
Yep.
- Got it. - Beautiful.
That's a tiny one, but it's gold.
Look at that.
Hey, it's what it represents, you know?
Yeah.
That means the journal is right.
There's a gold mine somewhere near Blind Frog Ranch.
Oh, hell yeah!
The journal led us to this arrastra,
and we found a piece of gold.
This discovery could change everything.
It gives me confidence in the journal
that the information is correct.
The journal is leading us towards gold.
Now we're about to find it.
Oh!
Next time on Blind Frog Ranch.
- Oh-- look at that. - What's that-- right?
The team unearths artifacts pointing the way
to the Keyhole Chamber.
I think we're at the entrance of a mine.
While Ron uncovers a game-changing lead.
You do feel there are other locations?
Oh, I'm sure there's gold.
- But the path to gold... - Oh!
...may mean risking it all.
I'm gonna go in.
Guys, it's caving!
Oh, [bleep]!
It's moving! Pull out, pull out!